It’s not about guns — it’s about an army

Brett Joshpe, a self-described “conservative and a Republican,” called for the Republican Party to embrace sensible gun laws in the Dec. 27 Open Forum. “Sensible limitations will not take away our constitutional rights, nor will they prevent us from protecting our families in our homes,” he wrote.

Today, National Review writer Kevin D. Williamson lobbed back a direct attack on Joshpe, taking him on for “an uncharacteristically soft-headed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle” and pointing out that Joshpe has the Second Amendment protections exactly wrong. They aren’t about sensible weapons. They are about paramilitary weapons. Williamson writes:

“There is no legitimate exception to the Second Amendment for military-style weapons, because military-style weapons are precisely what the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to secure our ability to oppose enemies foreign and domestic, a guarantee against disorder and tyranny.”

In other words, the right to bear arms is not about owning a gun, it’s about maintaining a militia, a civilian army to oppose the state.

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza wasn’t opposing the state. Nor was the university student who shot and killed 12 in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater. That argument is less clear with respect to Jared Loughner, who shot a representative to the government, former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., in a Tucson supermarket parking lot. He said his motive was that she didn’t answer his question, not that he opposed her policies or the government’s policies. I would suggest that protecting the citizenry from gunmen is more important than protecting the citizenry from the government.

What do you think? Does opposing the tyranny of the state outweigh the need for sensible gun laws to protect citizens from emotionally disturbed shooters?